Quantum theory works but is it scientific? After all, quantum waves aren’t observable:
“The full quantum wave function of an electron itself is not directly observable…” (Lederman & Hill, 2004), p240.
Nature’s firewall separates us from quantum waves because any attempt to observe them gives a physical event, but is a theory about what can’t be seen scientific? The doctrine that only “…what impinges on us directly is real” (Mermin, 2009), p9, suggests that it isn’t, because:
1. Science is about reality, not imaginary things like fairies.
2. Our reality is only what we can physically observe.
3. Thus, a theory about what can’t be observed is imaginary, and so it isn’t scientific.
By this logic, quantum theory isn’t scientific because it describes what we can’t see, yet it is the most successful theory in the history of physics! The flaw in the argument is the physicalist assumption that only physical reality exists. Certainly physical reality is all that we can observe, but that it is all reality is unproven. If the only reality is what we see, then quantum theory isn’t scientific, but that is a big assumption. Physicalism implies that quantum theory isn’t scientific, but theories in science aren’t limited to what we see, and never have been. For example, the theory of gravity is scientific but the space and time that cause it are constructs not observable things.
Science is actually based on empiricism, that knowledge should be based on experience not beliefs, as proposed by Lock and Hume. Scientific theories then only have to predict physical events, not be about them, so quantum theory is scientific because it does that.
The myth that science should only describe physical things is logical positivism, a philosophical derivative of materialism proposed in the 1920s. It argues as Mermin does that only what is observable is real, so science should be about nothing else. Anything else is imaginary, including thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, because we can’t see them. Its crusade to purge science of non-observables might seem good, but it makes most of mathematics unscientific because the unknown x of algebra, the infinitesimal dx of calculus, and even the triangle of geometry, aren’t physical things. Logical positivism is then physicalism masquerading as an axiom of science when it isn’t, and never was.
Positivism has failed every discipline that tried it e.g., behaviorism tried to reduce all psychology to behavior but failed to explain the productivity of language, as Chomsky showed. In computing, positivism can’t explain human-computer interaction (HCI) concepts like polite computing, or socio-technical concepts like group agreement. Today, physics is the last bastion of positivism, but even there it is failing because its theories need an unobservable observer, as quantum theory needs an observer to trigger quantum collapse and relativity needs an observer frame of reference.
According to positivism, science doesn’t need an observer because physical reality exists whether it is observed or not, so the observer is just a subjective concept that we made up because it can’t be seen. But if physics can’t ban the observer because its theories need it, why should other disciplines? Instead of an objective universe, Wheeler argues that we live in a participative universe whose every event is an observer-observed interaction, so to ban the observer is to ignore half of reality.
Quantum theory is scientific because scientific theories don’t need to describe physical things. After all, that we can’t see a ray of light from the side doesn’t make it not exist. Reality carries on whether we see it or not, and according to quantum theory, quantum events cause the physical events that we see, so an observation is just a view request, like a click in a game. The long-sought boundary between the classical and quantum worlds is then the click of observation, but this implies a measurement problem.